Currently coursing through the halls of the state legislature and embedded in Governor Brown’s revised budget proposal for 2018-19 is a new system for funding California’s Community Colleges. As an imaginative reform that will incentivize improved education and student services delivery in the nation’s largest higher education system, the politicians and advocates backing this proposal get an “A.” But in its current manifestation, the proposal deserves an “F” for the negative impacts it will have on poor students in the state’s most expensive regions, including Santa Cruz, the Silicon Valley, the Bay Area, pockets of Orange County, San Diego and Sacramento.

At its core, the proposed new system will continue to apply 60 percent of community college funding in the same manner used today — based on full-time equivalent enrollments at the state’s 72 districts. However, the remaining 40 percent would be split evenly between two new funding components. One funding stream (20 percent) will reward districts that serve underprivileged students at greater rates, using Pell grant eligibility as a major yardstick for students of need. The second funding stream would be based on a complex formula tied to completion data for associate’s degrees, certificates, transfer, and wage gains by students taking career education courses.

So as California sets to embark on an innovative model of financing community colleges, what’s the big problem?

First, the full impact of the funding formula change remains unexplored across various complex funding scenarios. No one knows how the formula will work in a recession, much less the current economic expansion period.

Second, the proposed funding model has the bizarre impact of producing no funding rewards for districts that are considered high performing by outside observers. Take Santa Monica or Long Beach City College as examples. They are often applauded for their high success rates with transfer directed students (Santa Monica) and for establishing college promise programs and placement system reforms (Long Beach) that have boosted course completion rates for underrepresented students. But under the proposed formula, both colleges would receive only 2.71 percent increases in funding to cover their cost of living increases.

Third, the current funding data published by the Chancellor’s Office and Department of Finance reflect some disquieting patterns when examining which districts will thrive and which districts will suffer. For instance, Cabrillo College, like other Silicon Valley districts and those bordering the Bay Area, will lose substantial sums of per-student revenue. In 2020-21, the college might have to shred more than $4 million in expenditures, more than 7 percent of its operating budget. Meanwhile, small rural districts will see their funding increased in one year by as much as 23 to 25 percent.

Which leads to my last concern: the formula will harm poor students who reside in densely populated, high cost of living areas while rewarding students disproportionately in less populated regions. The proposed funding formula, despite its good intentions, will exacerbate problems of funding equity in the very pockets of the state where poor students face the greatest pay and housing inequities in the state (if not the nation). Put simply, the proposed funding formula jeopardizes the future of poor, Latino and African American students in Watsonville, Oakland and San Jose in order to increase the funding available to provide educational opportunities in Weed, Blythe, and Antelope Valley.

Community college CEO’s recommend a go-slow approach. One idea is to switch the 60-20-20 split in the new formula to one that keeps the current method of funding at 90 percent, using a 90-5-5 split as a more reasoned and tempered entry into performance-based funding. Such an approach is akin to dipping your toe into a bath to check the temperature, following the logic that it is better to burn your toe than your entire backside.

In tandem with a 90-5-5 funding split, the system would benefit from the appointment of a task force representing a wide array of experts on community college administration, instruction, student services, budgeting, research and planning that can tease out the impacts of the proposed funding system over several years and several different economic scenarios. This task force could make recommendations to the Board of Governors and Legislature on future formula improvements, allowing the system to gradually implement and improve its performance-based funding mechanisms.

Until such time as these sensible ideas get considered, many of us see the performance-based reforms proposed by the Governor and Chancellor’s Office as deserving an “F” for execution.

Matt Wetstein has served as the Superintendent/President of Cabrillo College since Feb. 1.